How I Do Things
Photography:
The majority of the pictures on here at this point were taken with a Canon Digital Rebel,
a digital SLR. I've been happy with it, though at this point it's starting to show its age
(2 years old is ancient, these days). I've used a number of different lenses, including:
- The Digital Rebel's kit lens, a 18-55mm f5.6 or so zoom lens. For its price (cheap) this is
a pretty capable lens. However, it's a slow lens that gives poor resolution towards the
corners under many circumstances and will sometimes give color fringing.
- Sigma 105mm f2.8 EF macro lens. This is the lens I use the most, and I've been very happy
with it. The finish on mine is flaking off, but that doesn't really matter. It takes good
pictures and is cheaper (though possibly slightly better optically) than the Canon
equivalent. I had a Sigma 50mm f2.8 EF macro lens earlier, but the shorter focal length made
it much less useful.
- Canon 28mm f2.8 lens. I used this on a lot of landscape stuff until I dropped it down a
lava crack at the Grants Malpais. Oops. It was a good lens and I might end up getting
another.
- Canon 24mm f2.8 lens. I got this as a replacement for the Canon 28mm, figuring the slightly wider field of view
was worth a little more money. I've been quite happy with it.
- Canon 50mm f1.8 lens. I got this because I figured I ought to have a good 50mm lens.
I haven't had it long, but it seems like an
excellent lens for the price and I've been happy with pictures from it so far.
Some other things I use include:
- Canon 420EX Speedlite. A good all-purpose flash. It doesn't do some of the fancier things
for using multiple flashes and so forth that more expensive flashes can do, but I haven't
found this to be a limitation. I usually use it with a hotshoe cord so I can move it
around. I've thought about getting some sort of nifty bracket to hold it where I want it,
but so far the weight and expense haven't seemed worth it.
- Slik Sprint tripod. A small, lightweight tripod. I got this model because it seemed to
be the only one that would allow very low pictures (the head resting practically on the
ground) as well as moderately high pictures, without being prohibitively expensive or
complicated. It could use a stronger ball head and it lost one of its feet (lava and camera
equipment don't really get along), but other than that I've been happy with it.
- Adobe Photoshop CS2. I've also used several other versions. This is the program I use
for all of my digital photo editing. It took a while to learn how to use it to its full
potential (I learned by the "let's try buttons and see what happens" approach), but it does
pretty much everything I'd want.
Web Hosting:
This site has always been hosted on Macintosh computers running OS X, using the
Apache web hosting software that comes with OS X.
The primary stable domain for the site is polyploid.net. The site was originally hosted
from two servers at Indiana University (bee.bio.indiana.edu and
lucerne.bio.indiana.edu), since moved or defunct. The current computer was previously
reachable at boechera.nmsu.edu, but due to various technical problems ended up moving to
boechera2.nmsu.edu. I also own the domain names hexaploid.com, newmexicoflora.com,
indianaflora.com, and organmountainsflora.com. The first takes you to the main site, the
next two take you to the plant pages indicated, and the last is the future home of an
interactive online flora for the Organ Mountains to be created at some indefinite point in
the future.
Site Construction:
Most portions of this web site were constructed by hand usi